The Muppet Show is probably Jim Hensons most famous work to date. I guess the show itself is famous enough so that we don't have to get into detail with the story/characters. However, not too many people know that The Muppet Show has a long and interesting history of international releases.

The Translation

The German version of the series is a very interesting example of a well-done edit. In 1976, the German TV station "ZDF" indicated interest in releasing the series (the Muppets were already known due to the previous release of the "Sesame Street"). Unlike other TV series (e.g. "Star Trek"), Henson insisted on a German edit that was truthful to the original.

Unlike the dubbing (which was made in Germany), most of the edits were made in England - the Show's home country. Therefore, the German version had its own title card:

German Version

American Version

However, there's more. The German version also has different credits and whenever Kermit moderates, the English producers shot new scenes of these sequences in order to make shure that his lip movement fits to the German dubbing.

Overall, the German edit is well-done and pretty truthful to the original humor (even though they had to re-write some of the jokes). For later seasons, Henson was concerned about keeping the amount of America-centered jokes pretty low in order to make them more understandable for an international audience.

The UK-Spots

Not too many people know that the US version of the Muppet Show is in principle shorter than the other international releases due to the fact that there was a pretty simple principle: "23 minutes show + 2 minutes commercial break = 25 minutes". Since most of the international TV stations did not include commercial breaks in shows that are that short, Henson had to come up with a solution.

What he did was producing 2 minutes of extra footage which often consisted of musical numbers and sometimes even a new sketch. This extra footage was unknown in the USA until the series was finally released on DVD.

2 examples of these new scenes would be the song "Train to Morrow" (on the left) or Rowlf as Sherlock Holmes (on the right).

The DVD Releases

The international publishing on DVD is a pretty tiresome story. While in Fance and Italy all 5 seasons were released on DVD, the USA and UK to date only released the first 3 seasons. In Germany there was a pretty long-lasting lawsuit about who actually owned the rights of the German dubbing. However, the producers were able to resolve this conflict and already released the first 2 seasons (season 3 will follow in May 2011).

It's pretty surprising that the German DVDs were all released uncut while the American DVDs miss out on several musical numbers - the fans were not amused. The reasons for this were copyright issues as well as huge costs that Disney didn't want to pay.

Therefore, this is a comparison between the uncut German DVD and the shortened US DVD.

Episode 1x06: Jim Nabors

[04:48]-[05:14]
[-26 sec.]

At this point there's a missing moderation by Kermit. He announces Jim Nabors and the song "Gone with the Wind".

[05:15]-[07:36]
[-2 min. 21 sec.]

Jim Nabors and a Muppet perform the song "Gone with the Wind" - the set looks like a farm. At first, everything's fine but suddendly wind gets up (which fits to the lyrics). The wind constantly rises until everything is blown away - his partner, the furnering and even Nabors' pants.

[08:14]-[09:02]
[-48 sec.]

Backstage, Scooter acts quite clumsy by pouring hot coffee all over Kermit. He uses his blackmailing methods to escape punishment. After that he blackmails Kermit again to be able to show a sketch. Enervated Kermit enters the stage and announces the sketch "Danceros".

[09:03]-[09:48]
[-45 sec.]

"Danceros" is a rather unusual sketch which ends in a disastrous rendition of the dance. The dancers (2 inside 1 monaster) appologize and say that they were much better during the rehersals.